1 What is communism? There are many definitions, and some of the definitions sound like nearly the opposite of other definitions. This is partly because the real explanation of communism is a complicated one. It is also partly because people have strong feelings about communism.2 Some people remember that communism was a plan designed to make everyone equal and to give power to the average working man. A German philosopher, Karl Marx, explained his idea of communism in the early 1800s. Marx said that it was unfair for some people to be rich and for others to be poor. He said that the only way to change that was to get rid of private ownership of property. So, in his theory of communism, everyone owned everything together.3 Other people remember the violence and the hardships that the people in Russia went through under communist rule. They also remember the fear of a communist attack that many Americans felt. These people are remembering what happened when communism was put into practice. Vladimir Lenin, a Russian dictator, established rule by the Communist Party in Russia in the early 1900s. In Communist Russia, people had very little freedom. People were forced to do the work that the government dictated, and violence against Russian citizens became common. Russian citizens also became very poor under communist rule.